Revenge of the nerds

I got one more spy. This time a friend who spent some time in the vicinity of the Final Four. So here are four things this person told me. See if you can line them up to the correct Idol...

1. One is weird but fairly relaxed and easy to get along with.
2. One is arrogant and full of her/himself.
3. One is as sweet and decent as a human being can be.
4. One is, in the words of my friend, “a total pain.”

Let the match game begin.

Oh, and P.S. Three of them are major chain smokers.

Seacrest does his standing-in-the-audience opening rap about how the finale will be broadcast to 50 million Americans and to over 34 countries and that “the winner will be a superstar.” Not just a regular plain old “star.” Anyone can be that now, thanks to stupid reality shows like Not This One. This is a Different Level of Quality. It doesn’t make disposable, recyclable stars. It makes Superstars. You know, like Ruben Studdard. OK, maybe that’s not fair. I liked “Sorry 2004,” especially where he lists his many crimes against his lady and goes, “All them strip clubs / All them hot tubs.” But what has he done for me lately? It’s 2006 now, Ruben, so what’s up? Where’d you go off to? You don’t see Fantasia slowing down. She’s going to be in a TV movie about her own life. Illiteracy, baby-daddy drama—it’s going to be good.

Seacrest does that Doug Henning thing where he’s in the audience one second and then coming out from backstage the next. Tonight he’s in a three-piece suit, which is always weird and lawyerish to me. And what does a vest do for a person anyway besides adding bulk? On him it’s kind of like seeing those dudes who are so tiny they can tuck their sweaters into their pants and they do it even though it looks stupid. It’s their way of going, “Hey, check out this 28-inch waist!”

Someone in the audience has a sign covered in adhesive birthday present bows and streamers. The sign reads KAT LOVER! ALL THE WAY...FROM BEIJING CHINA! KAT IS WORLD CLASS! Forty years ago McPhee would have been shot by the Gang of Four’s firing squad for being an artist who wore lipstick. Now China sends delegations to CBS Television City in Hollywood with crappy homemade signs.

The Idols went to Memphis this past week, to Graceland. You see them rolling up in their car. Hicks says, “The birthplace of rock and roll.” Thanks, Greil Marcus. This is the second or third time this season that a contestant has decided to become a history teacher and talk about the origins of rock and roll. And guess what? No white person was involved. Not Cole Porter. Not Elvis. Not the Beatles. African-American blues and R&B musicians created rock and roll. The crackers took it and mutated it and sold it to other Caucasians. And that is that. Little Richard is home screaming at his plasma right now and spilling his Fanta Grape everywhere.

Marilyn Manson greets the Idols at the front door of Graceland. Oh wait, that’s Priscilla Presley. She’s a Scientologist, did you know that? And she’s clearly taken a shine to the more plastic surgery–friendly tenets of the mysterious religion. Y’all didn’t know you could be an OT 7 in rhinoplasty, did you? Then Priscilla surprises Tommy Mottola, who’s having a “casual chat” with someone off-camera. “Hey Mariah...uh, Priscilla. How’s it going?” says Tommy. OK, that’s a lie. He didn’t say that at all. I’m just trying to be cute. Anyway, Mottola is a good actor and pretends he didn’t know this was about to happen. None of the Idols are running in the opposite direction as fast as they can yet. I wonder why that is. But that’s all I’m going to say about Mr. Mottola. Because I’m terrified of him. I read those interviews with Mariah Carey. I don’t want to wind up “disappeared.”

Priscilla says that if Elvis were still alive, American Idol would have been one of his favorite TV shows. But hey, check it out, Priscilla—I consulted with a psychic friend today who talks to Elvis almost daily, and he told her to tell me to tell you that his favorite current shows are, in order:

1. Blue Collar TV
2. Veronica Mars
3. 106 and Park
4. Pants-Off Dance-Off

On to the singing:

Hicks is first with “Jailhouse Rock,” wearing a shiny purple suit from the After Six line of his Fuck You I’m Taylor Hicks and I Wear Ugly Shirts collection. He chose this outfit, I assume, because of the lyrics in “Jailhouse Rock” that mention “the purple gang.” Left out of this truncated version, however, are the lyrics:

“Number forty-seven said to number three,
You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see.
I sure would be delighted with your company,
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me.”

Yes, those lyrics are really in the original version that Elvis sang. And I got no comment.

Someone is holding a sign up that reads TAYLOR HICKS—TAKING OVER WHERE ELVIS LEFT OFF. Do they mean slumped over dead on the toilet? Probably not. But still. Think about these signs thoroughly before you make them, audience members. It’s not my fault that this is the first thing it brought to my mind. It’s yours.

The monkey is dancing and rockin’ the party. Because that’s what he does. He’s hunchy and leg-knocky as usual. He twirls the mic stand. He begins to accidentally strangle himself with his mic wire. He doesn’t care. People are jumping into the aisles to BE ON TV! OMG I GOT ON CAMERA AT IDOL! He dances past the whitest Fox sales department executive ever and the whitest Fox sales department executive ever’s family and leaps onto the stage. He gets crotch-level with the onstage guitar guy but fails to do the glam rock move of licking the strings. I’m blanking on who did that most famously but you know what I mean. And if you don’t then I can’t help you. Go watch Velvet Goldmine or Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Hicks goes all spinny before the big finish and then slams it down shut. People go apeshit. It’s a happiness convention.

Cut to Seven of Nine and her kid, sitting in the audience. I hope his name is Three of Nine. Cut to Paula, who’s got some kind of heroin addict tie-off rope around her neck that I don’t get at all but support wholeheartedly. Randy and Paula love Hicks and go blahblahblahweloveyoublah. But Simon has a bigger fish to fry. He finally, at long last, senses what’s happening with Hicks. And it’s as if he also just now realized that none of his nay-saying can stop the bulldozer. Because it can’t. He wants the country to see that Taylor Hicks, in his superior opinion, would not be an appropriate winner of this competition. He is worried that Hicks will besmirch the “credibility” of the show. You can see it on his face. This is the man who created the noxious Il Divo and foisted them on the public—I just want to state that again for the record. But that kind of crap appeals to Sir Cowell’s middle-brow, British sense of class consciousness. To him, blowhards like Il Divo are classy “artists” and Hicks is a corn dog at the food court. And he is that and more. He is Red Lobster is Ford Explorer is Pop-Tarts is Spuds MacKenzie. He is the down-market clown that Simon disdains. But one he’ll gladly make money from if he has to. Simon, though usually right, has missed the Taylor Hicks hayride.